White House officials have given “interested parties” a peek at federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchange plan application results in a new memo.
The 19 states with “federally facilitated exchanges” (FFEs) have attracted applications from “over 120 issuers,” officials said in the memo.
Officials did not list the issuers or say, for example, whether they are counting multiple operating companies that are owned by the same holding company separately.
Applications from carriers that want to sell medical coverage, or “qualified health plans” (QHPs), through the federal exchanges were due April 30.
PPACA calls for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to set up exchanges, or Web-based health insurance supermarkets, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia by Oct. 1, 2013.
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia are setting up state-based exchanges, and 15 are working with HHS to set up “partnership exchanges.”
Drafters of PPACA included a “multi-state plan” (MSP) provision that is supposed to increase the level of competition on the exchanges by requiring exchanges to make shelf space available for MSPs.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) would oversee the MSPs, and the MSPs could operate in more than one state.
OPM has been running an MSP bidding process but has not said anything about the results.
In the new memo, White House officials said it believes that carriers will offer MSP options in at least 31 states in 2014.
“OPM is currently reviewing over 200 proposed Multi-State qualified health plan options,” officials said.